Bid to bring 'much-needed' community housing to rural Yorkshire village by renovating two cottages

On Tuesday, March 14 Scarborough Council’s cabinet will decide whether to approve £18,115 of funding to support the development of a community-led housing scheme in Goathland.

If approved, the funding would enable the partial renovation of a cottage to ensure it meets standards and can be let to local people in housing need in the parish of Goathland.

The property is owned by the Church Cottages Trust which was set up as a charitable trust in 2021 to renovate two cottages in Goathland, according to the council. The aim of the ‘Church Cottages’ is to let them out as affordable housing to households in need in Goathland.

The two cottages were left to the village “by a resident in perpetuity many years ago” to be let as affordable housing and were previously managed by Goathland Parish Council but were recently transferred to the Church Cottages Trust. A report prepared for the upcoming cabinet meeting states that the Parish Council did not have the necessary funding to effectively manage and maintain the properties.

One of the properties has lain empty for several years and requires full renovation while the other property is said to require partial renovation. Last year funding of £31,500 was granted by the council to enable the derelict property to be renovated and then let out to a local household in housing need, with the renovations completed in 2022 and the property now tenanted.

However, the Trust was only able to undertake the renovation of the first cottage as it did not have sufficient finances to provide match funding for both cottages.

Council policy states that community-led housing groups have to provide match funding of “at least 50 per cent of the total development costs”.

The Trust has now secured the necessary match funding to undertake the renovation of the second cottage and envisages that works would be completed by this August if the grant is authorised.

According to the council report, the trust will also provide an assured shorthold tenancy and will set the rent levels at no higher than an affordable rent.

The agreement will also require repayment of the grant should the property be sold or used for anything other than its intended purpose. The funding comes from a £1.86m grant the council received from the Department of Housing in 2016 to support community-led housing schemes in the borough.